


San Francisco Fog

by yabasic



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: 3rd person pov, A lil fluff at the end, Angst, Depressed Stan, Depression, Idfk how to tag things someone teach me, Implied Relationship, Like at around the age when Stan takes his legendary bath in the book, M/M, Neither of my boys deserve this, Now this should be all the tags I think, Oh I forgot to add, Richie is good at taking care of him, Sad Ending, What Have I Done, but not a happy ending, they're aged up in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 12:12:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15533988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yabasic/pseuds/yabasic
Summary: Stanley Uris is depressed.The deep, heavy kind of depression that ties him to his bed with invisible rope and sucks out his energy and motivation and will to live. Richie Tozier is the last light he has left in his life.One night, Stan wakes up feeling happy, actually happy, for the first time in forever.He wants to dance.And who is Richie to tell him no?





	San Francisco Fog

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work that I've decided to actually post so please keep that in mind when reading it.  
> I hope you enjoy the story that took me an uncharacteristically long time to write,
> 
> happy reading :)

Every day was a repeat of the last. The sun would come up at five or six and Stanley Uris wouldn’t get up with it. His blood was iron and his bed was the most powerful magnet in existence, one that held him to it and forced the poison of his thoughts into his brain. Maybe he’d get up, once of twice throughout the day, to go to the bathroom or let his best friend and housemate, Richie Tozier, shove food down his throat. Sometimes he would wet the bed because he just couldn’t pull himself out of it. And Richie would clean him up and tell him it was okay and then put him back down in his sparrow-printed sheets until he stopped crying. 

Today is no different. Stan is in bed, staring into the cup of tea Richie brought him to hopefully help coax him into a calm sleep despite his insomnia. It’s been cold for hours. He hears birds outside his window, but he doesn’t smile, doesn’t even look up from the honey colored ripples of the tea in his hands.

Absentmindedly, he starts humming. It’s nothing that fits together, not even close, and mostly just consists of random notes that hang in the air and drag on until he runs out of breath. But at least now he can remember he’s breathing. 

At six o’clock, Richie comes upstairs to his room and knocks on the door, the rings lining his pale fingers clanking against the wood.

“Hey, Stan the man. Mind opening the door for an old friend?” It isn’t locked. He just wants to see if he can finally get Stan to stand up, give the deteriorating muscles in his legs the movement he knows they’re craving. He fiddles with the toothbrush between his fingers, the one he decided to bring for the other boy so he doesn’t have to get up to brush his teeth, which he knows he wouldn’t do if he didn’t have it brought to him. It’s a never-ending silence, until it isn’t and he can faintly hear Stan murmur “please don’t make me do it.” It breaks his heart. 

“Hey, bud, it’s okay- I’m not gonna make you do anything.” He replies in what he hopes is a lighthearted voice, opening the door and bringing him his toothbrush. The other boy is still wearing his stiff polo shirt and khaki pants from earlier in the day. Richie makes sure to help him get dressed every morning, even though he knows he isn’t going to go out anywhere. But hey, a guy can dream.

“Are you ready to get out of these uptight old clothes and into some pajamas, big guy? There’s a pair of blue-bird jammies in that closet calling your name.” Stan looks at him warily with those dead brown eyes of his, eyes the color of crumbling cliffs and polluted skies. His lips twitch. 

“I’m ready. I’m always ready, y’know, you don’t gotta ask me before you do anything. I don’t care anymore.” Maybe he’s trying to make a joke but he only ends up making Richie wince at how painfully obvious his agony is, how it’s so present that he can’t even hide it anymore. He wishes so deeply that he could take the pain away. 

“Noted. Now let’s uh- c’mon, noodle-arms, loosen up if you wanna go take a nice steamy shower. I know you like it when I wash your hair.” That gets him the weakest, most absent little smile he’s ever seen in his whole life, but he takes it anyway because it means Stan is trying, making an effort to at playing with happiness. As he carries him to the bathroom, he works a hand back through his scraggly curls, knowing he hates feeling messy, and then kisses his forehead as he sets him down on wobbly knees in the bathroom. 

The next hour consists of Richie helping Stan brush his teeth and shower and get into his pajamas. He makes a few jokes here and there, but the shell that’s left of his friend doesn’t even give him a little smile at any of them. 

By the time he’s finished helping him, it’s eight o’clock and the sun has set most of the way already, leaving a watercolor sky and acrylic clouds spread out outside the window of Stan’s bedroom. Stan is curled up in bed, face buried in his pillow and tears already wetting the soft material under his face. 

From the other room, Richie can hear him crying, but he doesn’t try to fix it this time. He’s spent too many nights at the foot of his bed, whispering how everything is going to be okay to a boy programmed to never believe it. Instead, he tries to get to sleep. After about twenty minutes, he’s in dreamland, where he expects to be for the next eight hours because Stan has never woken up before ten in the morning before. 

So of course he’s shocked when, at two o’clock am, he’s knocked out of his sleep by a gentle, firm little knock on his door. He knows it all too well. Those soft, pale fingers, rosy at the knuckles and a little too bony for their own good have always sounded the same hitting wood. 

“What are you doing up, Staniel?” He asks as he opens the door, greated with a sleepy-looking Stan wearing the biggest smile he’s seen in almost a year. Then, he feels thin arms wrap around his chest and he kisses his head, running his hands back through his hair as he tries to take in the moment, tries to take in the warmth and beauty the precious little Hebrew brings to the table.

“I feel… I feel really good tonight, Richie. I feel good.” He says, and Richie’s heart almost explodes with happiness. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s heard any words like those leave Stan’s lips, and now that they have he almost doesn’t know what to do. 

“So… so what do you want to do, Stanny? We can’t spend your happy time in bed, now can we?” The other boy practically beams as Richie pulls him into his arms and blows a raspberry into his neck, finally letting out a rough squeaky giggle, like the wheels of a bike that haven’t been oiled in far too long. 

“I- I wanna dance.” His voice is so quiet, it takes a second for Richie to process what he said, but when he does, he’s immediately scooping up his frail body and carrying him to their living room, turning on the radio and flipping through channels until he encounters a nice slow song. Then, he pulls him against his chest and kisses the top of his head, holding him tightly like they’ve been attached at the hip. 

Out of respect for the other boy, he doesn’t make a joke, doesn’t turn the situation into a lighthearted thing, because it isn’t. It’s a dying boy finding a quickly-drying oasis in the middle of the ruthless desert he’s stuck in, trying to grapple for as much of the happiness as he can before it’s gone. Nothing about it is funny. But he does poke a little harmless fun at him, commenting on how if he’d known he’d be up so early, he wouldn’t’ve taken that sleeping pill, and how he’s glowing brighter than the stars in the dim moonlight shining through the window. Stan’s smile grows until Richie can see his teeth.

“Pretty boy,” he whispers, running a hand through Stan’s curls and inhaling the smell of depression and hopelessness from his soft skin as they sway together. “Beautiful boy. We could do this every day if you wanted to, every damn day.” 

“Thank you,” is Stan’s dim reply, which the other boy spices up quickly by grabbing his hand and twirling him around, drawing giggles from his mouth. 

“All that frowning, I thought you’d forgotten how to smile like that.” He murmurs, getting a playful shove in return. God, how he’s missed those little lighthearted gestures, before everything went downhill. When Stan speaks again, his voice is cool and misty, San Francisco fog drifting into Richie’s body and calming the uncontrollable heat inside him. 

“I can’t ever forget,” that gentle birdsong of a voice. “Not when you’re around.” Hearing those words just about melts Richie’s heart. He doesn’t linger on it, though, knowing this moment is only temporary and will pass like the seasons before he knows it. 

Two hours later, they’re still dancing. Richie is half-asleep, drunk with his own tiredness, and Stan is just as lively as he’d been when they started. That’s when they have their first kiss since Stan first got bad. It’s lazy, gentle and soothing, and it feels like warm rose petals against his mouth. Stan had forgotten how much he loves kissing. 

But it doesn’t last long, it can’t. Because the dullness of a cloudy morning is quickly approaching and neither boy can stand the thought of sitting through a lifeless sunrise. So they both go back to bed, Richie first turning off the music, unwinding to the rhythm left echoing in his skull. This time, however, they go to bed together. 

Stan’s arms are wrapped around Richie’s neck as they swing through the halls, breathing each other’s air as they melt into the sheets, feeling warmth and love in the occasional brush of each other’s lips. The world is curled around them like the gentlest of fingers and feels so unbelievable soft and safe. 

“There you are, stan the man,” Richie murmurs into Stan’s neck as he runs a hand through his curls and touches his cheek with a rough, ringed hand. His face warms under the gentle touch. Stan closes his eyes and feels warm lips on his forehead, his cheek, leading down to his jaw and then kissing his lips. “I’ve missed you.”

Stan knows what he means. He’d been there, sure, but it’d just been the shell of him. Now, he feels whole. His heart feels big and swollen with a love for life- his life- that he hasn’t felt in what feels like years. 

“I’ve missed you too,” is his whispered reply, tinted with affection as he looks the love of his life in the eyes. God, has he been stupid, ignoring Richie’s eyes for as long as he did. The playful balls of life, colored like the earthiest tree bark, the toughest cliff rocks that can withstand any weathering from the ruthless tides. Tears sting his eyes at the realization of his biggest mistake: losing sight of what he cared for and what cared about him the most. The one who kept him alive. 

“I love you, Richie. I love you so much.” They’re his last words to Richie Tozier, although neither of them know it yet. There are tears on both ends and then they make love for the first time in years. Stan feels so much passion and love he sobs into Richie’s mouth, gripping those dark curls with frail, shaky as he throws himself into the ecstacy of connection. 

They fall asleep in a mess of limbs and tangled sheets and clinging hands, blissfully unaware that these beautiful moments will be their last together. 

Because the next morning, Stan gets out of bed as quiet as a mouse, kissing Richie on the corner of his lips as what he now knows to be a goodbye. He walks down the hall, bare feet meeting cold cherry wood. When he gets to the bathroom, he doesn’t look back, doesn’t try to resurface memories of his childhood, doesn’t try to talk himself out of what he’s about to do. He’s already made up his mind as he turns on the faucet and pours his favorite lavender soap into the stream of water. 

Stanley Uris takes a bath.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed work numero uno. Leave your feedback in the comments and I'll try to have another work out in the next week that's actually in the It fandom (which is probably why you're here) and maybe a few in other fandoms too, who knows?


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